Your Duty
by Random SW Fan
Summary: About a week into the trip to Bespin, some repairs need finishing. Follow-up to that epic moment in ESB in which Han hangs upside down in ship guts, giving us four glorious seconds to admire him that way. My first fic ever - keep your expectations LOW!


**Author's Note:**

**Well, this is my first-ever fanfic. Not sure why I suddenly decided to write this, and post it here, no less, but here it is. Very nervous to post and will probably never do this again but I thought I'd give it a shot.**

**This is probably a week into the trip to Bespin, which of course has been done many times and a lot better, but I decided that since Han never got a chance to finish whatever he was doing while hanging upside-down in ship guts (and giving us four glorious seconds to admire him that way), that important repair work would need to be finished one way or another.**

**I thought we could turn the tables and have some fun with that. So this is the resulting one-shot. I don't own Star Wars.**

Your Duty

"I can't. I c_an't._"

"You can."

"Okay, I won't." Leia paused and stared at him, hand on her hip, her lip a bit twisted as she considered her next statement. "You only want me to do this because -"

"Because every time I do it I get a cramp in my shoulder 'cause I'm bending so I can avoid hitting my head on the damn coolant line when I try to get back up," he answered. "You... you fit better in there."

Her eyes narrowed. "You don't know that. I've never _been_ in there."

Han approached her, slowly, with _that look._ The one that, of late, had rendered her helpless and giddy. He looked down at the deck, then up at her again with a sad expression. He stopped, inches from her face, eyes wide. "It _hurts._ Really."

It was pointless, she thought – pointless and futile to pretend her knees wouldn't buckle at the sight of his not-innocent, indescribably handsome face, and at the sound of his soft voice, even if he was so obviously faking his fear of this imagined predicament; so she grabbed his arms at the elbows to prevent an(other) embarrassing knee-buckling incident and willed herself not to look away. "I suspect you have other reasons."

The more he tried to look innocent, the more he failed. He raised his eyebrows and snuck an arm around her back. "Me?"

He was doing _that_ again – making it impossible for her not to kiss him – and she came to the point so as not to be distracted. "There's no way for me to do that repair without having to hang upside down in an unflattering position for an extended period of time."

Now he smiled wide, all pretense gone. "Unflattering? Says who?"

Her arms moved of their own accord around his neck. "Han."

"I won't stare."

"Yes you will."

Now he really did look hurt. A little bit. "Why can't I stare?"

She chuckled. "You're acting like a teenager."

He looked into her eyes, suddenly showing more true innocence than she'd ever imagined he could. "I feel like a teenager," he said softly.

She had no answer to that, no response except to return his gaze and try to calm the rapid beating of her heart. That she affected him this way was still so unexpected, so exciting -

And then it happened again – her knees gave way suddenly and he steadied her, smiling.

"Sorry," she muttered.

He gently placed his left hand on her cheek. "Your face, your elbows, your feet, I can't stop staring at any of it. I'm sorry."

She found herself leaning into his hand, and then she covered it with her own, closing her eyes. It was so new, all of it. She'd never believed, _truly_ never believed this kind of thing was real, let alone something that could happen to her. Physical attraction and drives were facts of medical science and she'd never considered herself above such things, especially three years into her association with Han Solo. But the tender, gentle affection he'd shown her, and that she'd returned to him – the stuff of holodramas and silly songs – it was _impossible,_ and yet it was happening again right now.

He was tilting her head back so he could kiss her. She eagerly complied and found herself pulling him close, all consciousness focused on his lips, his mouth, his movements. For all her inexperience, kissing him had proven to be natural and instinctual and, well, as easy a thing to do as anything she'd ever done.

_How have I been living without this?_

She broke the kiss and pulled her head back, smiling. She raised her eyebrows and said, "The other thing wrong with me doing this job is that in doing so _I_ am denied my rights as a passenger to enjoy the scenery while you work in there -"

"Crew. You're officially crew now."

"- with your anatomy –- I am? What's my rank?"

"First Officer of Beauty," he declared immediately. "Which makes it your duty to do anything you want to my anatomy."

Leia laughed, loud, then was struck with a thought and raised her eyebrows in challenge. "Then as First Officer of Beauty it's _not_ my duty to perform ship repairs." She backed out of his embrace and rubbed her hands together in triumph.

He smirked. "Damn it."

She nodded firmly and looked him over. At the moment he was indeed scruffy-looking, more so than usual, which in truth was usually not very scruffy at all. He'd been working day and night on repairs, and the contortions and deep-engine access required for those particular jobs had left him greasy, scratched, singed, and generally disheveled. She sighed.

He had been working this hard since the moment they'd blasted out of Hoth. Since shortly before, really, considering that whole business of rescuing Luke, who would have indeed frozen to death were it not for Han's near-fanatical loyalty and absolute unwillingness to abandon a friend in need. Han had refused medical treatment after returning to the base, but Leia had noticed he was moving a bit slowly and had she not been so thankful and furious with him at the same time she might have pulled rank and had security (and Chewie, who would have been all for it) lock him in an exam room with a Onebee unit during the next midday shift.

As it was, the subsequent battle and frantic getaway had caused a fortunate surge of adrenaline and he'd managed just fine to run around and dodge falling chunks of ice and fall on top of stubborn princesses...

And he'd been working at such a pace this whole time. Flying the ship like a lunatic, and a genius; trying to think through the Falcon's extremely complex mechanical quirks while effecting repairs under less-than-ideal circumstances; performing the duties of pilot, engineer, astrophysicist and tactician, not to mention capable chef – all for her. To keep her safe and to_ get her the hell away_ from the forces of darkness.

She had definitely taken him for granted.

She stepped forward again and placed her hands on his shoulders. "I don't want you to hurt yourself. And I can probably get it done faster than you can, anyway. Maybe then you can take me somewhere nice for dinner."

His grin lit up the room. "I could do that. The game table's a nice place."

She nodded. "Mm, hmm."

He wrapped his arms around her again. "Or just outside the dorsal heat vents. Gets warm in there, we could say we're in the tropics."

"I'd like that. I'll get to work." She looked at him earnestly. "And maybe you could get some rest."

He didn't immediately brush off her suggestion, but said, "I could probably stand to clean up. If I'm takin' you to dinner."

"As First Officer of Beauty, I order you to bring yourself up to code."

"Yes, Ma'am."

She stood on her tip-toes and kissed his cheek, so as not to initiate a kiss that would take longer. "'I'll see you later."

"I'll come by to check you ou – to check on you."

She sighed. "Well, then I hope whatever part of me's on display at that moment doesn't disappoint."

"Not a chance, Sweetheart." Smiling, he turned, and with a spring in his step, took off for the crew quarters. "Not a chance," he said again when he thought she couldn't hear.


End file.
